San Timoteo Canyon is a river valley

canyon A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...

southeast of Redlands, in the far northwestern foothills of the

San Jacinto Mountains The San Jacinto Mountains ()Munro, P., et al. ''A Mojave Dictionary''. Los Angeles: UCLA. 1992. are a mountain range in Riverside County, California, Riverside County, located east of Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles in southern California i ...

in the

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (commonly abbreviated as the IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County and Or ...

region of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

Geography

The canyon runs from its southern inflow mouth in Beaumont in

Riverside County Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...

, in a northwest alignment, to its northern outflow mouth west of Redlands and east of Loma Linda in

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of th ...

San Timoteo Creek San Timoteo Creek (also called San Timoteo Wash, colloquially known as San Tim) is a stream in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in southern California, United States. A tributary of the Santa Ana River, it flows through San Timoteo Canyon ...

formed the canyon, and flows northwest through it to its confluence with the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino and Riversid ...

, being a

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of it. The creek drains the Banning Valley west of the

San Gorgonio Pass The San Gorgonio Pass, or Banning Pass, is a elevation Gap (landform), gap on the rim of the Great Basin between the San Bernardino Mountains to the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. The pass was formed by the San Andreas Faul ...

water divide, and the watersheds of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains that feed into it.

History

The canyon was part of the winter homeland of the

Serrano people The Serrano are an Indigenous people of California. Their autonyms are Taaqtam meaning "people", Maarrênga'yam meaning "people from Morongo", and Yuhaaviatam meaning "people of the pines." Today the Maarrênga'yam are enrolled in the Moron ...

for thousands of years. There were

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

s in the area. The

San Bernardino de Sena Estancia The San Bernardino de Sena Estancia (also known as the San Bernardino Rancho or Asistencia) was a ranch outpost of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in what is now Redlands, California, United States. It was built to graze cattle, and for Indian r ...

was established in 1819 as a ranch outpost

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel Mission San Gabriel Arcángel () is a Californian mission and historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. It was founded by the Spanish Empire on the Nativity of Mary September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become twenty-one Spanish mi ...

, for the grazing of cattle by the Mission Indians. The original buildings grew to include a chapel, tile kiln, lime kiln, and a grist mill. The canyon was part of

Rancho San Bernardino Rancho San Bernardino was a Mexican land grant in present-day San Bernardino County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José del Carmen Lugo, José María Lugo, Vicente Lugo, and Diego Sepulveda. The grant included a l ...

, the 1842

Mexican land grant In Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California, ranchos were concessions and land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an indu ...

Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva California () among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but was made a separat ...

Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José del Carmen Lugo, José María Lugo, Vicente Lugo, and Diego Sepulveda.

Irving Gang, Cahuilla posse, and American militia

On the 27th day of May, 1851, Juan Antonio, the Californian Native American chief of the Mountain

Cahuilla The Cahuilla, also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California. ...

band, with a group of his tribesmen pursued and fought the Irving Gang of John "Red" Irving and his

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

outlaws in San Timoteo Canyon. Irving's band of raiding thieves had robbed people and stolen property throughout the San Bernardino Valley, including on

where Juan Antonio's Cahuilla village at Politana was located. Acting on the orders of the local Justice of the Peace, the ''

Californio Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

'' owner of the rancho and whose house the Irving Gang were robbing at the time, the Cahuilla attacked and pursued them into San Timoteo Canyon, where in a running fight they killed eleven of the twelve men in the gang after they refused to surrender. The Native Americans of Southern California, 1852. Family Tree Legends Records Collection (Online Database). Pearl Street Software, 2004-2005. pp. 40-41
For description of Juan Antonio's campaign against John Irving and his gang of San Francisco and Sydney outlaws, as well as the subsequent repercussions, see Beattie, Heritage of the Valley, 84–89; History of San Bernardino County (San Francisco, Wallace W. Elliott and Company, 1883), 77–79; Los Angeles Star, June 7, 1851, and November 20, 1851, Hayes, Scrapbooks, XXXVIII, Bancroft Library. There were decades of precedent for the Mountain Cahuilla who working on the local ranchos, tracking and hunting down bandits and other tribe's raiders was a service they were requested for in the San Bernardino region, during the 1822–1846 Mexican rule in

. With this 1851 order, they were still authorized to carry out legally requested local law enforcement actions, now within the year old U.S. state. However some newly arrived American settlers to

and the area resented the killing of "white men" by "indians" and mistook it to be the beginning of a Mission Indian uprising. A company of militia from the

Presidio of San Diego El Presidio Real de San Diego (Royal Presidio of San Diego) is a historic fort in San Diego, California. It was established on May 14, 1769, by Gaspar de Portolá, leader of the first European land exploration of Alta California—at that time a ...

was sent against the Cahuilla. At the time, present day San Bernardino and Riverside Counties were within San Diego County, and served by troops based at the presidio. Juan Antonio's Cahuilla band fled Politana, going to their homelands in the

. The American leader of the militia, Major General Joshua Bean, discovered the truth about the events and with difficulty restrained his troops from attacking the Cahuilla, preventing a battle and massacre. Closely following the outcome of the Irving Gang incident, in late 1851, Juan Antonio, his warriors and their families, moved eastward from Politana, toward the

and settled in a valley which branched off to the north from San Timoteo Canyon, at a village named Saahatpa. In November 1851, the

Garra Revolt The Yuma War was the name given to a series of United States military operations conducted in Southern California and what is today southwestern Arizona from 1850 to 1853. The Quechan (also known as Yuma) were the primary opponent of the Unite ...

occurred, a conflict of the

Yuma War The Yuma War was the name given to a series of United States military operations conducted in Southern California and what is today southwestern Arizona from 1850 to 1853. The Quechan (also known as Yuma) were the primary opponent of the Unite ...

. The

Cupeño The Cupeño (or Kuupangaxwichem) are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe of Southern California. They traditionally lived about inland and north of the modern day Mexico–United States border in the Peninsular Rang ...

leader Antonio Garra attempted to bring Juan Antonio and the Mountain Cahuilla band into the Serrano, Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians independence revolt. The Garra Revolt was put an end by Juan Antonio, a new ally of the Americans, who arrested Antonio Garra and handed him over to American authorities.

American expansion

One of San Timoteo Canyon's more famous residents was the teenaged

Wyatt Earp Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman in the American West, including Dodge City, Kansas, Dodge City, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita, and Tombstone, Arizona, Tombstone. Earp was involved in the gunfight ...

, whose family lived in the canyon from 1864 to 1868. The canyon was used in 1877 by the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

for its new southern transcontinental route's tracks into/out of the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountai ...

and

, to/from the eastern U.S. For a time in the mid-1950s it was considered as one of three possible alignments for the path of

Interstate 10 in California Interstate 10 (I-10) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida. The segment of I-10 in California, also known as the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway, ru ...

, as part of the new

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Hi ...

program, though the central route through Redlands was selected.

Parks

San Timoteo Canyon State Park

San Timoteo Canyon State Park is in development for public access and recreation facilities, and is not yet open. In 2001 a portion of the canyon, through the efforts of the Riverside Land Conservancy and others, was protected for a

regional park A regional park is an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreational use or other reason, and under the administration of a form of local government. Definition A regional park can be a special park distr ...

, and then came under management of the California State Parks department. When the regional park opens, it will add some much-needed public open space for the fast-growing

. The park's features will include: trails for hiking and horseback riding; the native flora and fauna of the canyon's varied

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s; and historical landmarks, including the San Timoteo Schoolhouse.

San Timoteo Canyon Schoolhouse

The San Timoteo Canyon Schoolhouse, a museum and park operated by the Riverside County Parks department, was built in 1883, and added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on January 19, 2001. It was acquired by Riverside County Parks from the Beaumont Unified School District in 1993, but was not opened to the public until after 2007, when a five-year restoration was completed.

San Timoteo Formation

Part of the wider San Timoteo Formation in the Badlands, fossils from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial epoch (geology), sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently esti ...

have been excavated in San Timoteo Canyon since the early 1900's.

El Casco Substation

In 2010, a construction crew found a deposit of

Irvingtonian The Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), spanning from 1.8 million – 250,000 years Before Present, BP.

fossils dating back 1.4 million years ago in San Timoteo Canyon. The well-preserved natural cache contained nearly 1,500 bone fragments. They included those of: two species of sabretooth cats; ground sloths the size of a modern-day grizzly bear; two types of camels; and more than 1,200 bones from small rodents. Other finds include new species of deer, horse, and possibly llama.

References

External links

* official website {{authority control Canyons and gorges of California Landforms of Riverside County, California Landforms of San Bernardino County, California State parks of California History of Riverside County, California History of San Bernardino County, California Bradshaw Trail Parks in Riverside County, California Parks in San Bernardino County, California Beaumont, California Loma Linda, California Redlands, California San Jacinto Mountains Santa Ana River Quaternary California Pleistocene paleontological sites of North America Paleontology in California Inland Empire